


love is stored in the lasagne

by raedear



Series: you had me at hello (fresh) [3]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: (hopefully), Bad Cooking, Cooking, Fluff, Humour, M/M, Prompt Fill, and that's all that matters, but he is still cute, joe still can't cook, sometimes loving your partner involves destroying your kitchen a bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:02:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29517786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raedear/pseuds/raedear
Summary: He wants to impress Nicky, and that means something new.Thus: lasagne. He’s going to make lasagne, and it’s going to be glorious.Did you know that just being in the same room as a good cook makes you a good cook yourself?Joe thinks so.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: you had me at hello (fresh) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2166849
Comments: 41
Kudos: 283





	love is stored in the lasagne

**Author's Note:**

> This prompt got away from me a little. I have no answers, please ask me no questions. 
> 
> Thank you, [hesnotmy](https://hesnotmy.tumblr.com/), for prompting me again in this verse :D sorry if this isn't quite what you wanted/expected
> 
> Do not try and cook this recipe, such as it is. It will be so, so gross, and you will have many many regrets. 
> 
> Buon appetito

Joe’s got this. It’s going to be romantic as anything, and he can absolutely, one hundred percent, no question at all, do it. 

He’s going to cook Nicky dinner, with no help whatsoever. Better yet, it’s going to be a _surprise_. He’s going to surprise his boyfriend (lover? partner? He hasn’t found a name for them yet that he actually likes, but he’ll keep trying) with a delicious home-cooked meal, the way Nicky always does for him, and it’s going to remind Nicky of exactly why he’s spent a year of his life with Joe. And, why he should spend many, many more with him. 

Now, in the year that he’s known Nicky, he’s learned many things about him. For example, Nicky can watch even the scariest horror films without flinching, but comedies with second hand embarrassment make him cover his face with stress. Also, he claims he’ll eat anything, but secretly thinks onions are disgusting and doesn’t understand why people put them in everything. It took Joe catching him picking onions out of his food three different times for him to admit that, and even then he still goes to cook with them sometimes before Joe can reassure him it’s fine, and he doesn’t miss eating onions at all. He’s too precious, his Nicky. 

Joe’s getting off topic. 

He’s learned, in their year together, that Nicky will always pick rich, comforting meals over fancy elaborate food any day. His risotto was just the start — Nicky has made him stews, tagines, any number of different pastas and sauces, all of it delicious, all of it made with love and plenty of butter. Joe has gone from doing vanity push ups to impress Nicky to doing actual push ups to work off Nicky’s cooking. He’s incredibly happy.

In the theme of comfort food, he’s onto a winner, he knows. The obvious thing would have been to make Nicky’s risotto for him. It was the meal that brought them together after all, and he’s watched Nicky make it often enough that he’s pretty sure he could do it now; Nicky even let him sauté a batch of the mushrooms last time when he had to take an urgent call from his sister. Joe could do it, regardless of how much Booker laughed at him when he brought it up. 

But that would be too obvious. He wants to impress Nicky, and that means something new. 

Thus: lasagne. He’s going to make lasagne, and it’s going to be _glorious_. 

Nicky’s made it for him now and again, and when Joe’s watched him cook it he’s seemed more to make it up as he goes along than anything else, so it clearly can’t be that difficult. He’s never made it the same way twice, although he always puts the layers together in the same order. Joe thinks he’s adorable. It always ends up delicious though, and Nicky clearly loves it; he always clears his plate when he makes it, and there’s rarely leftovers. It’s the perfect plan. Their anniversary dinner is going to be _fantastic_. 

—

Joe has three hours till Nicky’s due home, and he is filled with regrets. 

Nicky, before he cooks, lays out all his ingredients and tools, and does his prep neatly and in the order he plans on using the ingredients. He chops all his vegetables and dries and preps his meats and any number of other impressive things, and Joe has watched him do them all with avid fascination and not a little awe. 

It turns out, Nicky’s cooking skills have not transferred to him by sheer proximity. Joe can’t quite remember all that goes in Nicky’s lasagne exactly, but he’s sure it’ll come to him as he cooks. The garlic sticks to his fingers when he tries to peel and crush it. The carrot and celery prove difficult to chop neatly into the tiny squares Nicky always manages, and in fact look more like they’ve gone two rounds with a wood chipper and lost than they do well-prepared ingredients. He carries on though, he’s got this far and he’s running out of time. 

Another thing Joe has noticed about Nicky, and has been continuously and immensely impressed by, is how Nicky just seems to _know_ when things are supposed to happen. He rarely sets timers when he’s cooking on the hob, and he always seems to know on sight whether something is ready or not. 

Joe does not have the same skillset. 

His _mama_ didn’t raise a quitter though, so on he goes. He adds the carrot and the celery to the heavy bottomed pan Nicky always uses with a splash of oil, and pokes at the resulting mess with a wooden spoon, waiting for some material change to tell him what to do next. The oil starts to sparkle around the edges of the vegetable bits, and a savoury smell starts to rise from the pan. Is that what he’s waiting for? 

The next thing Nicky always does at this point in the proceedings is squeeze some tomato paste into the pan. Joe isn’t sure why, given he’s got a lot of passata to add later too, but he does it anyway, squeezing half a tube of tomato concentrate into the pot. He stirs it again and stares hopefully. It bubbles sluggishly at him. Now. Somewhere around this point the kitchen usually starts to smell of garlic too, so Joe slides the small mound of crushed garlic from his chopping board into the pan. He didn’t quite manage to get all the skins off, but he’s sure it’ll cook down just fine. The pan is starting to hiss at him, and he stirs everything around quickly, hoping the increasingly brown bottom of the pan is supposed to be that way.

Admittedly by this point in the proceedings, Joe is usually sketching Nicky and listening to him as he talks about his day, so he’s never been the most focussed, but so far so good, right?

Right.

He crumbles the minced beef into the pan and gives it a particularly vigorous stir. The vegetables and garlic are _very_ brown now, but surely they’re supposed to be that way? He’s sure Nicky’s talked to him about _aroma_ before. That’s a thing, right? Nicky usually pours wine into the pan and shakes it about a bit and then the whole house smells amazing. He wasn’t going to add wine, but surely it can’t hurt?

(He’s also starting to feel a little stressed and a glass of red might help him chill, whatever. Pour for the pan, pour for Yusuf. That’s a chef’s prerogative.) 

The mince is starting to look brown too, that, at least, he knows for sure is supposed to happen. He pours in a generous glug of wine and stirs, scraping the bottom of the pan as he goes. The wine hisses wildly, and splashes up onto his apron, but that’s fine. He lets it boil for a bit while he fusses with opening the jar of passata, the way Nicky always does. It doesn’t smell quite the same as when Nicky cooks the sauce, it’s a bit more acrid than it is deliciously savoury, but maybe that’s just because he’s standing directly above the pan? The smell doesn’t have a chance to dissipate.

The wine has settled into the meat-and-veg mess a little, and the mince is browned through. Joe dumps the jar of passata on top and mixes it all together. 

Something is missing. He’s definitely forgotten something. He stares blankly at the bubbling pan for a moment, ticking through all the things he’s ever seen Nicky do at the hob in his mind, before looking around the kitchen for inspiration when that fails. What does he do— Joe’s eyes catch on the spice rack. Nicky adds _herbs_. Of course he does. What was Joe thinking, food needs _seasoned_.

Joe turns the heat down on the cooker (Nicky always does when he has to walk away from it, Joe’s never thought to ask why, and now doesn’t seem like the moment to start) and crosses the room. Before Nicky moved in, all Joe had by way of herbs and spices was salt and pepper. Now, Nicky has a vast array of little jars and pots taking up half of one of their kitchen counters. He can still hear the sauce spitting on the other side of the room, so he picks the four jars that look most well used from the front of the rack, and the salt and pepper shakers for good measure. 

In all his time watching Nicky cook, he’s never seen him measure a spice. If he’s not pouring directly into whatever he’s cooking, he’s pouring into the palm of his hand and sprinkling from there. With blind optimism and a lot of love, Joe does the same, tipping basil, oregano, cinnamon and turmeric into the sauce one after the other. It takes on a slightly odd colour when he stirs it all together, but that’ll be fine — it’ll all balance out when it’s layered with the pasta. 

Happy that he’s used all the ingredients he was supposed to in the order they were intended, Joe turns the heat down a little further and pops a lid on the pot. It has to bubble away to itself for a while, and he has other things to do. 

One of the many reasons Joe loves to watch Nicky cook is he loves to sneak little tastes from the pots and pans when he can. Especially white sauce. Nicky does something with flour and butter and milk and it drives Joe insane, he could eat it with a spoon. He can’t wait to see how impressed Nicky will be that he managed to make a whole pot himself. 

Into a different pot Joe cuts a thick slice of butter and follows it up with a generous scoop of flour. He whisks them together quickly, and the resulting paste catches itself up in the balloon of his whisk. With entirely undeserved confidence, he starts pouring in milk, whisking all the while. 

Gradually, the butter/flour mixture loosens from the whisk and melts into the milk. It stays thin and watery though, just lumps of buttery flour in a milky bath. Joe squints at it, and whisks a little faster, wondering what the trick is. 

The saucepan rattles next to his elbow, and Joe curses as the lid starts to wobble. He drops the whisk to rest against the side of the pan in favour of scooping up his wooden spoon again, mixing the sauce quickly where it’s starting to bubble over. He turns the heat down further and puts the lid back on. Before he can fetch his whisk he remembers that Nicky always puts nutmeg in his white sauce, so he goes back to the spice rack. When he gets back to his white sauce, it’s thick and congealed in the pan, and he curses again, grabbing quickly for the whisk. 

It turns out, resting a metal whisk against the side of a metal pan while it’s on the flame wasn’t his best plan. He drops the whisk again with a yelp, managing to bang his wrist against the pot as he does so, knocking the entire thing to the floor with a decisive and jarring _bang_. 

To add insult to injury, his white sauce is so thick it doesn’t pour out of the pot so much as ooze. The saucepan rattles ominously again, and Joe blinks at the ceiling, praying for patience and holding back tears. 

‘... Joe?’

Joe jumps at the sound of Nicky’s voice, and whips round to face him, trying to hide the cooker behind himself as he does so.

‘Nicky! You’re home early, my love.’ Joe’s voice is weak and wavering, and he can’t quite manage to keep his smile on his face. Nicky peers at him curiously, head tilted to the side the way he does when he’s trying to figure out a puzzle. 

‘What are you doing, _tesoro_?’ he asks, trying to look around Joe’s side. Joe leans in the same direction, fruitlessly trying to hide his surprise, when the saucepan behind him gives a particularly ominous rumble and the lid starts to bounce in place with the force of the boiling ragu. Nicky’s eyes get very wide, and Joe hangs his head with a sigh and a sniffle. 

‘I wanted to make you lasagne, for our anniversary,’ he says to his feet, before he reaches behind himself and turns the cooker off. There’s a distinctly burnt smell to the kitchen now. ‘It didn’t work out quite as I planned.’ 

Nicky gives a little huff of a laugh, and Joe sniffles again. So quietly Joe almost misses it, Nicky coos a small noise at him, and crosses the room to wrap him in his arms. 

Joe is grateful every day for Nicky’s broad shoulders and graceful neck, but never moreso than when he needs a little comfort. His nose just seems to fit perfectly against the curve of Nicky’s jaw, and Nicky’s big warm hands are always so comforting on his back. He collapses into Nicky’s embrace, not even pretending to care about the mess on his apron. 

‘If you wanted lasagne, beloved, I could have made it for you.’ Nicky strokes his hair as he speaks, and Joe feels warm all the way down his spine. 

‘I wanted to surprise you.’

‘Yes, I can see that,’ Joe appreciates Nicky not laughing outright at him, for all he can hear him hiding a laugh in his throat. ‘What did my good saucepan ever do to you?’ 

Joe nips at Nicky’s neck in response, and Nicky loses his grip on his laughter. He squeezes Joe around the middle and rocks him gently from side to side as he laughs against Joe’s hair. Disappointed as he is in himself, Joe can never help but laugh when Nicky does, though he hides it in Nicky’s shoulder, just for the dignity of it all. 

‘Go have a shower, _tesoro_ ,’ says Nicky, once he’s calmed down, pressing a kiss to Joe’s cheek as he speaks. ‘I’ll tidy up here, and we’ll go out for a nice meal together after.’

Joe leans back in Nicky’s arms, peering at him. 

‘Counterpoint,’ says Joe, blinking as slowly and deliberately as he can. Nicky, as always, goes a little pink around the edges at the sight. ‘You could shower _with me,_ and we can order something in later?’ 

Nicky kisses the tip of his nose, then his upper lip, then the corner of his mouth. Joe’s breath comes a little quicker. 

‘Sounds perfect, my love. You have all the best ideas.’ 

Joe growls playfully at him and pulls him into a real kiss, quick and wet and dirty. Nicky’s comforting hands on his back start to wander, and Joe spares a final thought for how grateful he is, before he gives in to Nicky completely, pulling at his waist and shoulders to guide him out of the kitchen and into the rest of their night together. 

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, from the bottom of my heart, thank you everyone who's read and commented and kudos-ed this series over the past few days. It's meant the world to me 💜 
> 
> if you've got the spoons, I'd love to know what you think of this instalment
> 
> Catch me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/raedear_writes) and [tumblr](https://raedear.tumblr.com)


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